NYC is a perpetual test case for chaos theory. Also, as can be seen from the photo here, Mr. Bell is (sorry, was) a very unsmiling person. No wonder the heavily armed plainclothes and undercover cops felt so threatened.

Moreover, the reason there were all those heavily armed plainclothes and undercover cops in the vicinity was DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS, or at least SUSPECTED DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS.

Mr. Bell was just an unfortunate, unsmiling piece of collateral damage in the bogus war on drugs. Had this been Baghdad instead of NYC and Mr. Bell had been an Iraqi instead of an American, he would have been just an unfortunate, unsmiling piece of collateral damage in the bogus war on terrorism.